K-Town

You're right. When I checked park factors a couple of weeks ago, Minute Maid was playing as a pitcher's park. It's not so now, so I stand corrected. Regardless, Carpenter has a 1.13 ERA at Minute Maid. Pettite and Oswalt both have better ERA's at Minute Maid than Clemens does. So it's not like it's some sort of miracle that Clemens is able to perform well at Minute Maid. As for him "bailing out", all I know is that twice within the last month or so, he's left a game when his team REALLY needed him. Carpenter hasn't. I have been following this thread for a little while now and there is a point that I dont think anyone has raised yet. When a pitcher throws for a team with a terrible offense he will almost always have fewer innings pitched because he will frequently be pulled for a pinch hitter. I dont have the numbers, but I am fairly confident that Roger has left most of his games this year in favor of a pinch hitter rather than a call to the bullpen. Cant blame the manager or the pitcher for that, if you have runners on after the fifth or sixth inning in a scoreless game and your pitcher is coming up who wouldnt hit for him? I would be curioust to see the number of time clemens and carp have left games for a pinch hitter vs a relief pitcher if anyone knows how/where to find them. Last month, he left a game with a bad back. Last weekend, he left a game with a hamstring problem. He's not being pulled for a pinch-hitter, typically. Clemens is averaging 101.7 pitches per game. Carpenter is averaging 98.8. Clemens is going as deep into a game as he can go. He's just not working as efficiently as Carpenter. On a sidenote: I think it's weird that some posters claim that Carpenter is being abused by Larussa, when Clemens is throwing more pitches, in fewer innings.

You're right. When I checked park factors a couple of weeks ago, Minute Maid was playing as a pitcher's park. It's not so now, so I stand corrected. Regardless, Carpenter has a 1.13 ERA at Minute Maid. Pettite and Oswalt both have better ERA's at Minute Maid than Clemens does. So it's not like it's some sort of miracle that Clemens is able to perform well at Minute Maid. As for him "bailing out", all I know is that twice within the last month or so, he's left a game when his team REALLY needed him. Carpenter hasn't.

Really? Have you read my opinions in the "MVP" thread? Not biased toward Pujols, at all. How about the thread titled "Who will win the World Series". My pick? Not the Cardinals, but the Red Sox. Did I campaign for ANY Cardinal to win ANY award last year? No. I believe that Bonds deserved the MVP, and there were no Cardinal pitchers worthy of the Cy Young Award. So you point isn't really valid. If Clemens and Carpenter had their numbers reversed, would I be clamoring for Carpenter as the Cy Young winner? I'm not sure. It's certainly a close enough contest that a little "Redbird bias" can sway me. It's those of you who think it's a "no brainer" for Clemens who are biased. There's a VERY solid case for Carpenter to win, because he has the whole package, not just the ERA title. Oh, and Andruw Jones doesn't belong in the MVP conversation with Pujols, and it is pretty much "ridiculous" that he's mentioned.

The Braves are "lucky". :wink:

Win Shares are now dead even for Pujols/Lee, and VORP is extremely close (Lee with a slight edge over Pujols). If Lee wins the MVP, it won't be a crime, but I think you have to favor the guy that's leading his team to the playoffs (Pujols). Lee is deserving, but Andruw Jones shouldn't even be in the conversation.

so here we are about three weeks after I made this post. let's look and see what the Cards have been doing with Carpenter 8/19 5-4, 8+, 94 - a low pitch count game. LaRussa runs Carpenter out in the ninth trailing 0-2 and he gives up two more. 8/24 8-3, 8.0, 96 - a low pitch count game. the Cards put up a five spot in the top of the first and have a 6-2 lead going into the seventh. LaRussa leaves Carpenter in in another blow out. 8/29 6-1, 7.2, 94 - average pitch count for the point in the game. the Cards go into the bottom of the fifth with a 6-1 lead, but Carpenter is left in until he goes nearly 8. LaRussa chooses to use his two best right handers, Tavarez and Isringhausen, to mop up the final four outs with a five run lead. 9/3 4-2, 9, 120 - high pitch count in a duel between Clemens and Carpenter. Clemens is gone after 5 and the Cards take a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh. LaRussa sticks with Carpenter to finish the game. I did some research on this after this debate, and the Card fans who said this is what LaRussa always has done were absolutely correct. LaRussa has kept the peddle down throughout the regular season. with his history of failure in the post season, you'd think he would learn his lesson. let's do a cursory review 1983 White Sox - the White Sox clinch their division earlier than any other team in baseball history. Lamar Hoyt, Richard Dotson, and Floyd Bannister are leaned on heavily, 261, 241, 217 innings respectively. Bannister gives up 4 in six innings in game two, Bannister is shelled in game three. the White Sox bow out of the playoffs to the O's. 1988 A's - the A's win the division by 13 games. Sterart 275, Welch 244, Davis 202. LaRussa refuses to go to a four man rotation in the post season. the World Series is dominated by the Dodgers pitching. Davis gives up six in game two. and Stewart gives up four in seven innings. Davis gives up four runs in four innings in the clinching game 5. the A's lose the World Series. 1989 A's - the A's win their division by 7 games. LaRussa eases up a little on his starters. Stewart 258, Moore 242, Welch 210, Davis 169. he goes with a four man rotation in the playoffs, and only needs two starters in the WS because of the earthquake. A's win it all 1990 A's - the A's win their division by 9 games. Stewart 267, Welch 238, Sanderson 206, Moore 199. the A's pitching dominates the playoffs giving up only 4 runs to the RedSox, but LaRussa is back to a three man rotation. Stewart and Moor get shelled in games 1 and 3. A's are swept in the WS. 1996 Cards - they win a woeful Central by six games. Benes 230, Stottleyer 223, Benes 191, Osborne 199. Again he goes with a three man rotation in the playoffs. Cards sweep in the first round and lose the Championship series, including losses of 14-0 and 15-0 after taking a 3-1 lead in the series. 2000 Cards - Cards win division by 10 games. Kile 232, Hentgen 194, Stephenson 200. Cards sweep the Braves in the division series, mostly due to their offence, but neither Ankiel or Stephenson stay in the game long enough to get a W. Ankiel melts down and both Hentgen and Kile get shelled in a 4-1 series loss. 2001 Cards - Cards win WC by two games over the Giants. Kile 227, Morris 216. the Cards lose in the divisional playoffs. Morris and Kile hold up ok. too much Schilling-Johnson for the Cards to handle. 2002 Cards - Cards win the division by 13 games. Morris 210, Williams 220, Finley 185. Cards win divisional with a good start from Morris and great bullpen work in the other two games (Finley goes six and pitches well, Benes pitches into the fifth. Morris is shelled in game one of the Championship series, Finley is roughted up in his start. Cards lose series 4-1. 2004 Cards - Cards blow out the division, but LaRussa refuses to use a sixth starter until Carpenter gets nerve damage in his arm. they walk through the Dodgers. they have alot of trouble with an inferior Astros team and win a seven game series in which a Cards starter makes it into the seventh only once. in the WS, the Cards starters ERAs/IP Marquis 3.86/7.0 Suppan 7.71/4.2 Morris 8.31/4.1 Williams 27.00/2.1 year after year LaRussa has teams that blowout their division, he refuses to rest his starters, and his starters fail him in the post season. he's one of the best regular season managers in history, but pretty much chokes his shot at the big prize year after year, despite having superior teams to those he faces almost every year. Maybe, just maybe if he saved them a few innings here and there throughout the regular season LaRussa wouldn't contiually see his starters get shelled in the post season. Cub fans all saw it in 03 with Prior, Wood and Z, but the Cubs needed nearly every game to make the playoffs. LaRussa's teams have been in that position only once. you'd think he would learn his lesson, and you would think all Card fans would stop supporting some of his stupid philosphies, such as needlessly pushing his starters in the regular season. So you're shocked that guys like Hentgen, Stephenson, Stottlemyer, Osborne, Davis, Dotson, Bannister, etc. are getting roughed up in the World Series? Saying that they overachieved in the regular season would be closer to the truth than concluding that they underachieved in the post-season. I'd like to see a similar study for other teams, to see if Larussa is better or worse. It would be interesting to see if Cox is doing something similar, with Atlanta, because we all know about his lack of post-season success. You're basically concluding that Larussa is a post-season failure. Compared to.......... whom?? Joe Torre? OK. So a guy with a payroll twice as high as Larussa's has "shown us how to do it". Who else? The playoffs are basically a crap-shoot. You're over-analyzing it.

What is all the rest of Clemens' numbers were not better? Clemens has more walks, less K's, less CGs and less innings. Hell he only has one complete game. He is almost averaging an inning less per start than Carpenter. Clemens also has only one start in which he's allowed three or more runs. Wrong. Clemens has had at least 3 starts where he's allowed 3 or more earned runs (including one in August, where he allowed 5). And he's averaging almost an inning less than Carpenter per start. Carpenter hasn't allowed more than 3 earned runs in a game since May. He also hasn't gone fewer than 7 innings since June 8. He's also something like 15-2 following a Cardinal loss this year.

Carpenter's extra innings of great performance are taken into account in more advanced metrics. Clemens still comes out ahead. Which "metric" measures this: The Cards and Astros battled for 13 innings Friday night (the Astros ultimately won the game). The bullpens were spent. So on Saturday, Clemens and Carpenter squuare off. Clemens bails out after 5 innings (having given up 2 earned runs), with his team trailing 2-1, and Houston ends up having to use 5 more relievers, after the 13-inning affair the night before. Clemens didn't give himself a CHANCE to win that game, really. Carpenter, meanwhile, clearly didn't have his best stuff (was in alot of trouble early), but battles for 9 innings, giving up only 2 runs, and gives his team a completely rested bullpen for the next day's game. This isn't the first time that Clemens has bailed out of a game early. But hey, at least he's keeping his ERA and "WARP" intact!! Carpenter is now on pace to pitch at least 28 more innings than Clemens this year. That's the equivalent of 4 extra games. You don't think that makes a difference to a team? Carpenter's downfall is one bad start, back in April. One bad start has cost him, but people forget that he's going to pitch the equivalent of 4 extra games over Clemens. Oh, one more thing. Carpenter has now pitched 24 innings at Minute Maid, and has a 1.13 ERA there. So don't give me this crap about how what Clemens is doing is "even more amazing, because of the park that he plays in". Minute Maid is playing as one of the most extreme pitchers parks in baseball this year.

Oh, this isn't my main ammo, it's just another whammy, that's all.

"That's funny" is just another way of saying "I can't argue with logic like that", right? :lol: C'mon. You guys are surely sharp enough to realize that the award doesn't simply go to the pitcher with the best ERA.

I posted this in another thread, but it's probably better suited for this one: Did you know... The record for the most major league baseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356 innings. He pitched for 22 years and won 511 games which is still a record today. He holds the major league record for complete games with 751. He is fourth on the all time list for shutouts with 76. He led the league in shutouts seven times. He led the league in wins four times. In the spirit of the award, it might not be a bad idea to consider these things before you decide who to give the award to. Maybe the writers are more "on track" than we think. Sounds alot like an award that's custom-made for a guy like Chris Carpenter. I didn't find anything about him that's related to ERA.

It's Wikipedia's definition. Can you find another on that doesn't mention the Cy Young being an award for the best pitcher in the league? What do you think the award is for? The most productive pitcher, maybe? The most valuable pitcher, maybe? The pitcher who has helped his team the most? Couldn't find a different definition, huh? Didn't look until just now. I haven't dug too deep, but I did find this little tidbit: Did you know... The record for the most major league baseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356 innings. Seems to me that in the spirit of the award, innings pitched would be extremely important. He pitched for 22 years and won 511 games which is still a record today. He holds the major league record for complete games with 751. He is fourth on the all time list for shutouts with 76. He led the league in shutouts seven times. He led the league in wins four times. Sounds alot like an award that's custom-made for a guy like Chris Carpenter. I didn't find anything about him that's related to ERA.

It's Wikipedia's definition. Can you find another on that doesn't mention the Cy Young being an award for the best pitcher in the league? What do you think the award is for? The most productive pitcher, maybe? The most valuable pitcher, maybe? The pitcher who has helped his team the most? Couldn't find a different definition, huh? Didn't look until just now. I haven't dug too deep, but I did find this little tidbit: Did you know... The record for the most major league baseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356 innings. Seems to me that in the spirit of the award, innings pitched would be extremely important.

I think that 1908 is right. The Cardinal starters are VERY lucky to be playing for the team they're playing for. I also think that the Cards are VERY lucky to have them. The Cards' staff has the best ERA in the NL, 2nd best WHIP, 2nd best OPS against. I wouldn't trade the Cards' staff for any in baseball.

It's Wikipedia's definition. Can you find another on that doesn't mention the Cy Young being an award for the best pitcher in the league? What do you think the award is for? The most productive pitcher, maybe? The most valuable pitcher, maybe? The pitcher who has helped his team the most? If you want to give the award to the best pitcher, then give it to Chad Cordero. He's been GREAT. Better ERA than Clemens. Better OPS Against than Clemens. Better K/BB than Clemens. More saves than Clemens. He's helped his team in more games than Clemens. Same WHIP. Only 9 fewer wins than Clemens (Comparable to the difference between Carpenter and Clemens). There's your man.

What is the Cy Young award? That's what I typed into Google. Here's the first response: "In baseball, the Cy Young Award is an honor given annually to the best pitchers in the Major Leagues. The award was first introduced in 1956 by Commissioner Ford Frick in honor of Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young who passed away in 1955. The award was originally given to the single best pitcher in the major leagues. In 1967, the practice began of honoring one pitcher in each league." Whose opinion is that?

Of course not, because we didn't have some sunshine pumping Diamondback fan over here throwing a fit. That's because the best fans on the planet are in St. Louis, not Arizona. :lol: It's hard to get D-back fans worked up about ANYTHING.

Or that Carpenter is a better pitcher than Clemens... :D Wrong thread. Come to think of it, there is no "best pitcher" thread. I have seen a "Cy Young" thread, however.

That's his point, the expected wins/loss means our pitchers are not as "good" (comparatively or isolated) as their win/loss indicates. It also suggest that W-L records are a poor way to evaluate a pitcher's performance. I think we all agree that not many stats (including wins and losses for a pitcher) tell the entire story by themselves, which is why most of use try to look at the bigger picture. I don't think that anybody is going to make an argument that Jeff Suppan is a better pitcher than Carlos Zambrano, just because he's won more games.

Wouldn't this tell us that 1) The Cards have done a good job of generating offense 2) The Cards have a good bullpen 3) The Cards play very good defense I'm not that familiar with the stat, but what else would cause "luck" for a pitcher? And if those 3 factors are the main reasons for the extra wins, then is it really "luck", other than the fact that they're lucky to be pitching on a very good team?

I totally agree that the remark about the "Cubs winning" was inappropriate, and I promptly apologized. I could have edited it out, but I own the fact that I said it, and it was inappropriate. I meant it in a fun way (heck, my son is a Cubs fan, and I razz him all the time). Regardless, it was inappropriate, on this forum. Again, my apoligies to those who were offended. I acknowledge that this is a CUBS board. If you'd rather I disappear, all you have to do is ask. Vance, I'm just having trouble understanding, if this is such a "no-brainer" question, then why even ASK it? It just seems like you're TRYING to make someone expose themselves as someone that you can call a complete idiot (not that you've done that, but you know what I mean). Clemens has a better ERA. If that's the question that you really meant to ask, then consider it answered. Can you even FATHOM the possibility that some people might read more into the Cy Young Award than simply "who has the best ERA"? I think that ERA is VERY important. If Clemens had pitched anywhere near as many innings as Carpenter (which he won't........... he'll likely have pitched the equivalent of 4 or 5 fewer games, when all is said and done), then that would be one thing. If Carpenter were 19-4 "by accident", then that would be one thing (even Cardinal fans agree that Garrett Stephenson had NO business winning 16 games in 2000, because he was terrible). My point is that when you consider the entire package, wins, innings, ERA, the one bad outing by Carpenter back in April, strikeouts, KK/BB, the fact that Carpenter has pitched 3 of the top 5 games in all of baseball (not just the NL) this year, the fact that a precedence has been previously set by the voters that doesn't have much to do with ERA.......... so on and so forth, then you realize that Carpenter might deserve to get the nod over a guy who hasn't pitched a 9-inning game all year, and has had his team win more games than they've lost (for whatever reason) when he starts.

You don't have to assume anything about my motives. I've told you over and over again that I'm a slightly biased Cardinal fan that's here to toot his horn. That's my motive. I'm not sure how I can make it more clear. Am I here to "troll". No. If I were, I'd be involving myself in discussions about Cubs players, which I don't. How can I possibly be "trolling" on a Cubs board, when the thread has nothing to do with the Cubs? My posts have had nothing to do with IBM. For him to tell me to "go circle jerk with other Cardinal fans" was inappropriate, and so I called him on it, as politely as I could. I assume that you didn't start the thread to discuss it with other Cub fans, since it's in the "Rivalry" section of the message board. I'm starting to wonder why there even IS a "Rivalry" section, because it's clear that the Cubs fans here are offended by those who oppose their stance on a given topic. I haven't called anybody "ignorant", or told them to "go circle jerk with the Cardinals", or anything of the sort, and yet I see those types of things directed toward me in almost every page of this thread. Different people have different opinions. Otherwise, the thread would be titled "Who has the better ERA, Clemens or Carpenter", and the discussion would end. I didn't travel here to hype Carpenter. As I told you, I did not start this thread. And if it "not appropriate" for me to discuss Carpenter's case for the Cy Young Award here, then why did you start the thread in the first place? Whatever I've said that's "silly" is probably a little bit of my Cardinal bias coming through. I don't doubt that a bit. But as I've said, if I'm "silly", then I'm not the only one. The Cy Young race is probably pretty even right now, so I'm not alone in my thinking, and you can't assume that everyone who thinks that Carpenter deserves it is completely wrong, just because you don't see it that way. If you think I've ridiculously biased, then look at the thread where somebody asked who the World Series favorite was. You'll see that I picked the Red Sox, because they've proven themselves (last year). By the same token, the Cy Young voters proved to me last year (and years before) that Carpenter is meeting the criteria to win the award.

A case can be made that Lee has had better lineup protection than Pujols . Cubs' team OPS = .777 Cards' team OPS = .768 Pujols and Lee have both been good. Lee has a slighty better OPS and more home runs, while Lee has more RBI's and runs scored. Pujols has probably been the slightly better base-stealer, while Lee has been slightly better defensively (not much). Win Shares are dead even, which tells me that it could go either way. It wouldn't be a crime if either player won, but I'm guessing that Pujols will win because he's leading his team to the playoffs, while Lee isn't. Andruw Jones shouldn't even be in the conversation.

It's not "biased", necessarily. But it's also not an ERA race. As "reggie" pointed out, it's better to look at the overall picture. Clemens probably hasn't helped his team as much as Carpenter has. No fault of Clemens, but an ordinary pitcher would have had similar results as what Clemens has had (the Astros losing more than half of his games). If you're not winning games, then sometimes your efforts are all for naught, unfortunately. It happens all the time. As already pointed out, Cy Young himself probably wasn't the very best pitcher of his era.

You admit that you're arguing for Carpenter because you're a Cardinal fan. That in itself devalues the rest of your argument. It has said that you were already predisposed to choose the Cardinal player for the award and therefore have looked for whatever evidence you can to support that argument. Why do we have 20 pages? Because first and foremost we're baseball fans. We like to discuss baseball. While, for the majority of us, that includes Cubs baseball because that is the team which we have the most interest, it doesn't preclude us from having opinions about baseball in general. It has nothing to do with Cardinal bias. Yur agrument has everything to do with bias. Why do you feel the need to argue with Cubs fans over this issue? Do you post the same arguments on an Astros board, or an Angels board, or a Brewers board, or a Braves forum? I can point you to those if you want. My guess is that you just want to argue here because you believe there's a bias that doesn't exist. You assume we're all saying "Oooh Boy...we want Clemens to win it so we can laugh at Cardinal fans." It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that we've looked at the evidence and have come to the intelligent conclusion that Clemens is the best pitcher. While you might argue the Cy Young shouldn't go to the best pitcher, that's another point that we disagree upon. My guess, which you've all but admitted, is that if Carpenter had Clemens numbers and Clemens had Carpenter's numbers you'd be here still arguing for Carpenter and making the arguments we are. The only difference in that situation is that we'd likely not be arguing with you, because we would agree. I'm just wondering if you had 25 pages last year, explaining why Clemens shouldn't win. I have some bias, but it's not like the Cy Young vote is a no-brainer this year. It's probably pretty close to a dead heat. If it were a "no-brainer" to Cubs fans, then the thread wouldn't be here to begin with. Why am I not on an Astros board, or a Brewers board? Because they haven't posed the question (apparently they don't care, while Cubs fans obiously do, because the question WAS posed on this board). I didn't start this thread. And if there's only one correct opinion, then you'll have to ask your buddy "Vance" why he asked the question (I have to assume right now that he was simply trying to bait a willing Cardinal fan into a discussion).